The Quest for Badassery

It has been way too long since I have posted in this blog.

So, here is what happened. After the horribly hot run that happened in the post titled "Scorcher" and then the second horribly hot run where I didn't run as far as I wanted to in the post ironically titled "Fitness works!", I kind of... crapped out with running. I had three factors contributing to this. The first (as you may have guessed from the descriptors "horribly hot" up there) was the fact that I am a baby, and running outside in 90+º temperatures with insane humidity is not really my cup of tea. The second, and most relevant to this blog, was that I was frustrated with my lack of progress with my foot. I suppose it isn't really fair to feel that because my foot wasn't "solved" after only two months of running, the running must not be helping... but I was frustrated by walking through the city on a nice day or standing in my kitchen to cook or socialize with friends and still being crippled for over a day afterwards. This issue is something to be discussed at a later date, because I am concerned that my foot problem is getting better instead of worse, but perhaps the Injinji's I bought to wear with my Vibrams in dry cooler temperatures will prolong the length of time that I can wear them.

The third reason I crapped out with running was that I started doing strength training instead. J and I did a body weight circuit for a little less than two weeks, before switching over to a strength training routine. One group of exercises were pushups, body weight squats, and plank. The second group of exercises were some kind of leading-up-to-pullup exercise (dumbbell rows, inverted body weight rows, or negatives), bodyweight lunges, and plank. For about a month, I did this exercise routine three days a week, fairly religiously. I made some pretty good progress:

Workout	Before	After
Pushups	0/0/0	5/3/0
Modified pushups	17/13/4	19/11/10
Bodyweight squat	40/23/18	45/28/21
Lunges	40/24/20	50/30/28
Negatives	5/3/3	7/4/1
Plank	1:13/0:41	2:11/1:01

Then, we renovated our kitchen in August and I crapped out on strength training too. (In my defense, ripping up an old sheet vinyl floor and being on your hands and knees for an entire week 8 hours a day relaying a vinyl tile floor is fricking exhausting... it took me over a week to recover). And then school started again, I was overloaded with nonsense, and I haven't worked out regularly since. Sigh.

The good news in all of this, is that J and I have a new heightened sense of enthusiasm for exercise. I have taken up a new hobby: flying trapeze. I absolutely love it; in fact, I had the best class I've ever had tonight, since the first class. I'm getting better and better at it. I love it because I have never had a physical hobby like this before, and surprise surprise, it makes me want to work out ALL THE TIME so I can get better and stronger. My latest motto is, "I got tired of being weak and decided to be awesome instead." I want to be strong, fit, and fricking awesome at trapeze, so I have started lifting weight. WEIGHT. This is only my first week, but I am very motivated and excited. On Tuesday, I did some negatives and a set of dumbbell dead lifts with both of J's 25 lb dead lifts... and I did TEN of them. Ten 50 lb deadlifts... that means I need more weight! Haha. Then, on Thursday, I did 5/4/4/4 of 50 lb squats. My legs are still killing me, but with every hobbling step I take, my body is singing because I am pushing it to its limits and I am going to get stronger. I have remembered why I love to run, and bemoan the fact that I ever stopped, so the current plan is to run and strength train as often as my body will let me, because I love both things very much.

J has lost 30 lbs since we have started this fitness journey together,  mainly with diet alone, and now that N is home from Iraq, J has started working out three times a week with N and our buddy R. J's current goal is to get down to 10% body fat by the wedding (essentially cutting his current body fat in half). My goal? BADASSERY. That's all.

Tune in next time to find out what other kind of crazy weights I'm lifting and awesome things I do while flying through the air. (Today it was back-half whip. Almost there for back-end whip...!)

Huge step in the wrong direction.

Well, THAT was the most pathetic run I've had in months. That's what I get for not running for two weeks.

J and I have been focusing on body weight strength training lately. It's been going well. But having exhausted legs from lunges and squats combined with the brutal heat we've had lately has made me very disinclined to run. It isn't even so much the running outside that is the problem... the problem was coming home to an oven. We now have an air conditioner so I am going to try to run on my off days from strength training. I'm also going to start doing the later weeks of the C25K program because I really want to be able to run 5k by my birthday in a month. Consider the fact that the last time I ran, I almost ran 2 miles without stopping, I still think it is doable.

I also have been feeling very discouraged by my lack of progress with my foot. The running doesn't seem to have made my foot worse... but it doesn't seem to be helping. I feel like I haven't left square one, and I don't know if my foot is going to be okay for the rest of my life. If my foot bothers me this much when I am walking around with a ten pound backpack on my back, how will it be able to support me when I'm carrying a baby? Perhaps after a year of wearing Vibrams, rather than a few months, things will feel different but I'm just not sure.

So, let's see. I ran two thirds of a mile tonight at a little under 6 minutes. Blech. Need to eat more, and run more.

Fitness works!

My latest body improvement is that I can touch my toes with my legs straight! I seriously don't remember the last time I was able to do this. My guess would be sometime during my childhood when I was taking ballet. I have always had impossibly tight hamstrings; I could never do the sit-and-reach at school and a lot of the ballet moves were just not happening for me. Fortunately my teacher wasn't terribly strict. I also developed a nasty habit of constantly sitting with my legs folded. Constantly. Whether I'm sitting in a desk with my knees folded up to my chest, or lying on a couch in the fetal position, or lying in bed with my knees half bent, my legs are never straight and I suspect that this has contributed to my hamstrings actually shortening even more. But, with all of this running and stretching after every workout, I seem to be reversing the damage! Granted, this is the bent-at-the-waist-while-standing sort of touching my toes, but small victories.

The run yesterday didn't go as well as I had hoped. We only logged in about a mile and a third before we both had to stop for different reasons. My legs hurt and J's lungs were toast. I also was aware of my foot for the first time while running. My foot was bothering me on Thursday night because I spent too much time standing when we had people over, so it's no surprise that it wasn't fully recovered yesterday when I went to run. It didn't hurt, and the sensation did work itself out, but I wasn't pleased to have any semblance of pain in my foot while I was running. We weren't too stressed, though, about not running as far as we had been. The new course that I had mapped out is all on pavement and largely in the sun, which makes it a lot less enjoyable than running through the trails in the park. I'm going to try to map out another route in the park that will take us the distance that we should be running. We will see how that goes.

The body weight circuit workout has also been going well. I did inverted dumbbell rows with twenty five pounds the last time I did it! It was certainly a struggle, and the rows are in the middle of the routine, but I did all three sets with 25 lbs. Huge, huge, huge improvement. The pull up how to guide says that when you can do the rows with 25 lbs, you are ready to move on to step 2, which is inverted body weight rows. Mwahahaha. I love improvements.

Last improvement to speak of? My arch! I have an arch in my foot now. I wish I had been taking pictures over the last two months, but I was stupid, and didn't. However, the arch is distinctly there, even when I'm standing up. Before, it just looked like there was nothing there. Hooray!

Scorcher.

Holy wowzers, it's hot outside. The temp is somewhere up near 90º and we just got back from our run. I've gotta say, it was pretty brutal. My side cramps returned early on in the run, so I pretty much ran the entire time with an ache in both of my sides. J was really struggling today; he had worked the past five nights and is working again tonight, so he was pretty wrecked physically already. We split up about .75 miles into the run; he stopped to walk and I kept on running.

I really missed having him on the run with me. Although we normally don't talk much during our run, it is reassuring to have him by my side. I wasn't sure that I was going to make it even to the same landmark that we ran to last time, but every time I really wanted to give up, I willed myself to keep going and just put one foot in front of the other. It got progressively harder and harder to breathe, though, and by the time I saw the intersection where we had stopped the last time up ahead I was gasping for breath and knew that I wouldn't make it any farther. I kept checking over my shoulder to look for J, but I figured that he had returned home rather than continue on the 3 mile loop. I walked by myself for quite a while, desperately switching sides of the street to find the shade. I surprised myself by running for two more intervals after the one long one.

It's interesting to me how my perception of distance has changed. I ran the first interval and it felt like I barely ran ten feet before I was exhausted, and I figured in my head that it probably would be around a tenth of a mile. I walked for a while longer, and when I started up again, I soon rounded a curve that put Main Street back in my view; I figured I would run to Main Street and then walk the rest of the way home, which was not far at all. Again, while I was running, I figured that the distance was slightly longer than the second interval, but not by much.

The only part that I was right about was the very last bit; the third interval was in fact slightly longer than the second interval. The distances were 0.21 miles and 0.29 miles respectively. I was rather surprised when I saw those distances on the map, only because it seemed like it was so short when I was running it. I really am improving! The other huge improvement this run was that I ran the 1.79 miles in 17:48, whereas last time I ran it in 19:16. That takes me from a 5.5 mph pace all the way up to a 6 mph pace! I was pretty excited when I saw that on my watch.

I walked proudly back to my house, but I could tell long before I got there that the door was closed and locked. My heart sank; I had assumed that J had returned to the house and would be waiting there for me to come home. He had the house key. I circled the house, even though I knew that both doors and all the windows were locked. I was ready to expire. I wanted a tall glass of ice water, a place to stretch, an ice cold shower, and a ton of protein. I wanted to tear my rotisserie chicken out of the kitchen and sit on the floor gnawing on it like a dog, I was so hungry and thirsty and hot all at the same time. Minutes ticked by. I thought about walking back and retracing the route, looking for J, but I knew I didn't have it in me. Fortunately, my land lord pulled in to the driveway and I begged him for the key. Just as he went upstairs to find the keys, I saw J walking down the street. Perfect timing.

The only thing on the aforementioned list that I didn't actually do upon entering my house was the gnawing on the chicken like a dog. I did however do an excellent stretch routine, drank a huge glass of ice water, and nearly gave myself a heart attack with a freezing cold shower. I could barely breathe, again, because the water was so cold. It felt really nice on my legs though.

I'm still not sure what is causing me to have side cramps. I thought it was the yogurt that I was eating before the runs, but a peach isn't yogurt. I'm thinking now that it's perhaps an air quality/hydration/heat issue. The last time I got side cramps was when I ran with my brother and that was a really hot day. Today was pretty hot also. We will see, I will have to investigate.

Moral of the day? Improvements are great, running in near 90º heat with ridiculous humidity is not so great.

I've finally become a woman.

I am 5' 4.5". (Seriously, every time I get measured, I am *right* in between 4" and 5".)

I weigh between 105 lbs and 107 lbs. (My weight has fluctuated between 107.6 and 105.4 in the past 24 hours.)

And yet, I somehow have 22.1% body fat, according to the body fat calipers that J and I bought two days ago.

This number in and of itself really doesn't bother me at all. Truthfully, I have always been quite a fan of the way that I look. I've got a decent figure for someone who was a twiggy bit of a thing growing up.

But in the past two days, that's changed a little bit. You measure body fat percentage with calipers by grabbing the fold of skin/fat on your stomach between your hip and belly button. And all of a sudden, I don't like that fold one bit. It isn't noticeable unless I am sitting, but I don't like it! I feel like it appeared overnight, which obviously can't be true, but I find it a little bit alarming. I have never been the least bit sensitive about my appearance, except when people used to make fun of me for being thin in high school (anorexia jokes really get old fast, in fact they are pretty much never funny). But now I want that fat to go away. I want what every woman wants... a flat, toned stomach, and no more bra bulge on my back. Sigh.

In other news, J and I did our second day of the body weight circuit. I managed to make some improvements. I lifted 25 lbs (!!!!!!) for the dumbbell rows in the first set and then switched down to 12 lbs for the second two sets. I also did the plank for 45 sec, 35 sec, and 40 sec instead of 30. I think next time we do it, I am going to kick my pushups up a notch. I know that you can't rush these things, just like with the running, but I want results!

Getting better all the time.

Originally J and I planned to go running yesterday, but we both were so wrecked from the circuit workout that we decided to take a day off. It was a good decision, because I could barely walk all day. I was pretty floored that my legs were so incredibly weak, with all the running that I have been doing, but I suppose your thighs really do get used less than you think when you barefoot run... it's the calves that do a ton of work. In lieu of exercise, I finished painting our new living room and moved all the furniture from the old living room to the new living room. I was joking with myself about how lifting and moving the television is like doing a dead lift! Only with a TV! Once everything was moved I pretty much collapsed on our couch and watched TV until J got home from work.

This morning we got up and we went running before the sun made everything too terribly hot. I mapped out a new course for us to run. Our goal is to run a 5k by the end of the summer, so J suggested that we actually start run/walking a 5k distance. I thought it was a good idea, and it's good to change things up, so I mapped out an all-street loop near our house that is a little bit more than 5k. It included the quarter mile walk to the park that we normally do as a warmup, so once we got there we started to run. The run was fairly flat for the most part, although there were a few parts that had some decent hills. There also was a fair mix of sun and shade. We made it to a street corner that marked 1.79 miles of actual running before we stopped and walked the rest of the way. I timed our running and, although I forgot to hit stop when we were finished, we were at about 19:16 for the entire run. It's about a 10:45 mile... slow, but not bad I think. I really am more focused on distance right now than time, so in that regard, I am very pleased with my progress:

Date	Initial Run	Total Run
5-31-11	0.29 miles	?
6-7-11	0.4 miles	1.04 miles
6-10-11	0.6 miles	1 mile
6-15-11	0.77 miles	1.12 miles
6-20-11	0.8 miles	1.15 miles
6-28-11	0.7 miles	1.12 miles
7-2-11	1.33 miles	1.33 miles
7-5-11	1.48 miles	1.48 miles
7-9-11	1.79 miles	1.79 miles

Basically, what everyone has told me so far is true. Once you get past your first mile, it becomes progressively easier to add on mileage. What was interesting for me today was that I have moved past my lung capacity being what slows me down. I could have kept running today; I wasn't out of breath when we stopped. J was quite out of breath, but what was bothering me were my calves. They were much more sore than they have been before. I need to make sure that I am careful, and don't overdo it with my legs now, since I've been so careful. I think once I can actually run 5k, I am going to try to improve my speed. Because after all, if I sign up for a 5k and do it, it's a race! So far today my foot doesn't hurt at all, but we will see how it feels later tonight after I start cleaning and washing dishes.

Beyond running.

Way back when, before I started running, I decided that my fitness goal for my wedding (since every bride has one!) is to have impeccable posture. At the time, I had 18 months to learn how to stand up straight without my shoulders hunching.

Exhibit A: Wearing a too-big strapless gown in my cousin's wedding.

This is an extreme case. The dress I was wearing didn't fit me properly, so my elbows were locked to my sides for the entire ceremony to hold it up. But regardless, this picture to me is the epitome of bad posture. My shoulders are hunched, my back is curved, my neck is sticking out. Bad, bad, bad. I do not want to look like a stunted flamingo on my wedding day.

I asked our friend N (the one who recommended Born To Run and In Defense of Food and really was a major catalyst for this entire life change) what I could do to improve my posture. He suggested pull ups. I scoffed and said that I could not do pull ups.

Fastforward four months. My recent running goal was to be able to run more than a mile. Now that I have achieved that, I have set my sights on other sorts of fitness. I had put my wedding fitness goal on hold for a while as I was building my running endurance, because running itself was actually improving my posture and I got a little bit sidetracked by how awesome running made me feel. I am not going to stop running, by any stretch of the imagination, but its time that I work in some other things to make my entire body strong and fit.

Like pull ups.

I find pull ups to be the epitome of badass. I find it ridiculously attractive when guys can do them, and ridiculously badass when girls can do them. Being able to lift up your entire body weight like that is pretty freaking cool. I know that it won't be easy, but that is what I've got my eyes set on. My brother flat out told me not to bother, since there are plenty of girls at the Air Force Academy who can't do a single pull up, but I know I can do it. I also like proving him wrong when it comes to my fitness. I discovered the excellent page on Nerd Fitness about how to learn how to do a pull up if you can't do any and I feel confident that eventually I will get there. I discovered last week that I can in fact do chin ups. Ridiculous! Scrawny toothpicks-for-arms me.

All that being said, today J and I started a new workout regimen. Nerd Fitness (which is one of my new favorite websites) has a detailed "Beginner Body Weight Circuit." Essentially, it consists of:
- 20 body weight squats
- 10 push ups
- 20 walking lunges
- 20 dumbbell rows
- plank
- 30 jumping jacks

Then repeat the circuit three times.

I really didn't think I would be able to do it three times, but I did. I used my six pound dive pocket for the dumbbell rows, which was not enough weight, and I did the pushups on my knees. My body was pretty wrecked afterwards, which actually felt pretty nice. J and I are trying to start a schedule of running, circuit workout, day off. Eventually we will fill the day off with something else, but for now, that body weight circuit workout is kicking our butt. Once I improve enough to be lifting 25 lb dumbbells on the rows, I'm going to start doing negatives or inverted rows. Then, someday, pull ups.